1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to circuitry which enables waste thermal, electrical or mechanical energy to be utilized.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The machines and processes used by man in the modern industrial society while of continually increasing efficiency inevitably result in the generation of waste energy. As supplies of conventional energy decrease and costs increase, these losses are of rising concern.
Many of these losses are in the form of waste heat. Heat is generated for thermal processes, such as heating and cooling, and so that mechanical or electrical work may be extracted from a heated medium, as with stream engines or the thermal generation of electricity.
The heat so generated is never totally used resulting in a residuum of heat which is wasted. This waste heat is usually dissipated in the atmosphere with both an energy loss and a detrimental effect on the environment.
Heat may also be generated as a result of mechanical or electrical work resulting from friction or resistive losses and the like. This heat is also largely unused and dumped intof the atmosphere.
While attempts have been made to utilize such waste thermal energy, they have not been totally successful. Utilizing the heat directly, as thermal energy, usually is not practical because heat may not be the desired form of energy or because of the necessity to match the source temperatures with the load temperatures. The often sporatic and untimely nature of the availability of thermal energy also renders it difficult to use. Storage of heat energy is difficult.
In many circumstances, electrical energy is generated incident to processing, testing, and the like in industry. For example, in the manufacture of storage batteries, it is necessary to charge and discharge the batteries several times prior to shipment. At present, this energy is also largely wasted due to a lack of a utilization technique or means. The energy of the storage batteries is discharged into a resistive bank. The heat so produced is usually dissipated into the atmosphere or in a cooling means.
While electrical waste energy does tend to be more usuable than thermal waste energy, it usually does not have the standard voltage and frequency characteristics, such as 60 Hz, 110 volts, necessary to facilitate utilization. Any effort to transform such energy to useful voltage and frequencies has been impeded by the inefficiency, unreliability, and expense of the necessary apparatus.
Like thermal energy, waste electrical energy tends to be sporatic and unrelated to available power demands which it might satisfy. Storage of such energy until a demand arises has also been blocked by expense and inefficiency.
On the other hand, some forms of energy are easy to store, for example, the potential mechanical energy of an elevated, stored body of water. However, similar to other forms of waste energy, inexpensive, efficient means of utilizing such energy as by converting it to electrical power of standard voltage and frequency characteristics have been lacking.